This past Sunday, I was assigned to be the preacher. I had done my research and preparation, I had incorporated the theme from our stewardship campaign which would be culminating on Sunday, and I had finished the sermon by Saturday morning. By that evening though, I found out there had been another mass shooting, this time at a synagogue in Pittsburgh. This one was particularly heart-wrenching because it was at a place of worship, committed by someone who explicitly wanted to persecute people from the Jewish faith – my brothers and sisters. So, on Saturday night, I had the age-old question of a preacher: do I need to change my sermon?

Ultimately, I decided to mark the event liturgically with our prayers, but not address the incident in my sermon. I could not preach about it because I was not ready. Something about this incident hit me differently, but I could not yet articulate it. And one of my homiletics professors always told me if you are going to preach something pastorally sensitive, make sure you have carefully constructed your sermons to pastorally address the issue. And I just wasn’t there.

But in the days since the massacre, and after having a few conversations with parishioners about their frustration that I didn’t mention it, I am finally beginning to be able to articulate why this particular mass shooting is so upsetting. The problem for me with this shooting was not that it occurred in a place of worship. Despite the fact that I think those places are sacred places, gunmen and those with bombs have long desecrated houses of worship. The problem for me was not that the shooting was anti-Semitically motivated. Christians have long been complicit in anti-Semitism and if we are going to get upset about a shooter, we need to be equally upset about our own culpability in not rooting out that sin. The problem for me is that this mass shooting was the final straw in helping me see that we as a country, and more importantly, we as a Church, have become complicit with the devaluing of all life – that same very life we claim to be made in God’s image, and created in goodness.

That accusation may feel harsh for you, as you are not likely a person who has ever committed violence with firearms on another person. But until we as a society, and we as Church, decide that human life is sacred, these incidents will never stop. The Oklahoma City Bombing happened weeks before I graduated from high school. The Columbine High School massacre happened weeks before I graduated from college. Essentially, for my entire adulthood, our country and our Church has not been willing to definitely say, “No, this is not who we will be. We will make concrete changes so that this doesn’t happen again.” And so it keeps happening. At colleges, in schools, at workplaces, in homes, and in houses of worship. To African-Americans, to immigrants, to the LGBTQ community, to Jews, Christians, and Muslims. To teachers protecting students, to police officers protecting innocents, to mothers protecting children. Yes, I am outraged that eleven beautiful children of YHWH were murdered senselessly in their most sacred place of worship. But I am also outraged that we as a people are unwilling to do something about it. We are so scared of losing, of sacrificing, of giving up something that we do nothing. We become complicit, unable to hear from a mother who lost her kindergartener and say, “This will not happen again.” And so it does. Again, and again, and again. Because this is who we are. In our unwillingness to change, we have become a country who does not value life, who does not stand up for what is sacred, who does not see God in every human being.

My dear readers, I implore you, please take this day or this week or this month to do better. I know it is hard, and compromise is nearly impossible in our current political climate, and you deserve certain rights. But when the Lord our God created us in God’s image, God said that it was very good. Our job while on this earth is to protect that goodness – even if it means not winning, sacrificing, and giving up some things. Because until we are willing to make a change – any change – this is our reality. This is our America. This is our norm. I don’t want that. And I suspect you don’t either. So, crawl with me. Creep with me. Scratch with me to make our way back to that blessed place where we hold life as sacred, where we stand in the light with all our brothers and sisters and see the holy in each one of them, where we can look at another person, no matter what political views they have, and say, “it is very good.” And then help us to live into that goodness.

If ever there was a confluence of people not “getting it,” in holy scripture, today is that day of confluence. First, we have the Job story. Many of us are thrilled to hear the victorious ending of Job today. After weeks of following Job’s story – from the fateful bargain between God and Satan, to Job’s suffering, to those around him cajoling him to give up on God – we finally arrive at the great redemption of Job. But what I love most about this last chapter of Job is not what we heard, but the verses we skipped. The verses we skipped are about Job’s friends, his friends who have tried and tried to tell Job what he has done wrong, what he needs to change, why all this bad stuff is happening to him. In verses 7-9, God expresses God’s anger at Job’s friends, saying, “you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has.” At least, the New Revised Standard Version translates the text that way. But the original Hebrew does not say, “you have not spoken of me,” but “you have not spoken to me.”[i] In other words, the friends of Job talked and talked to Job – but never to God. They sat and mourned with Job, but when they opened their mouths, they did not open them in petition to God. They just ran their mouths, spouting all sorts of unhelpful nonsense.

We could argue the same of the followers of Jesus. They are faithfully following Jesus toward Jerusalem, presumably the innermost circle of Jesus’ followers. When blind beggar Bartimaeus shouts out to Jesus, their immediate response is to shut him down. We are not clear if they are embarrassed by this filthy beggar’s presumptuous cries, or they feel as if the beggar is breaking protocol for appropriate ways to seek healing, or they just think Jesus is above helping this person in need. Regardless, their immediate reaction is to shut him down, push him aside, shush him into oblivion. The crowd following Jesus assumes they knew better and they presume to speak for Jesus about when, how, and to whom God offers healing or blessing. They never speak to Jesus himself.

The summer I spent as a hospital chaplain, I saw this sort of behavior all the time. Hospitals can be places of deep despair and suffering. The hospital can be the place where we face our mortality, where a diagnosis changes the course of our lives, or where decisions have to be made that no one ever wants to make. In that thin place of life and death, all sorts of things are said, much of which is an attempt to make sense of things that do not make sense. I cannot tell you the number of times a patient was blamed for their fate by a family member, a patient began to question their life choices, or a friend blamed God for the patient’s suffering. When there was no medical solution, those who were suffering seemed to be looking for something or someone to blame. Those were the times when devastatingly hurtful things were claimed or God was used as a weapon instead of a companion.

We could easily wag our fingers at the friends of Job or at the followers of Jesus or even those patients and family members in the hospital, saying in exasperation, “When will those people ever get it?!?” We fancy ourselves as Jobs or Bartimaeuses. But that is not where God is speaking to us today. God sees us in the crowds today. God sees us as we saddle up to friends, and instead of simply listening or affirming someone’s frustrations or sufferings, we offer explanations and answers, we think of hundreds of “if you just would do this” solutions, or we even act as judge, thinking of reasons why maybe they, in fact, deserve this suffering. God sees us as we scold a panhandler or judge a family living in a motel. God sees us when we judge someone’s addiction or mental health challenges as if they are not medical conditions. God sees us secretly wonder about whether someone’s suffering is a result of “bad karma.”

This summer, in the days before General Convention started, the House of Bishops held a listening liturgy for victims of sexual abuse in the church. The first-person accounts of twelve men and women were read by bishops. Unlike most of General Convention, where one person after another makes impassioned, but time-limited speeches at a podium, this was an opportunity to simply listen, to let the painful words fall on those gathered, and to make space for painful truth. The liturgy was made all the more powerful by having male and female bishops in purple clericals saying the words aloud – in essence, taking on the victim’s pain through their own voices, and ultimately, demonstrating the pain of individual victims belongs to the entire church. Resolutions, covenants, and task forces would follow, but for that hour and a half, everyone stopped and sat in the ashes, not presuming to speak for God, not explaining the suffering away like the friends of Job, or not trying to stifle the voices of the suffering like the crowd around Jesus.

The counter example to the friends of Job and the crowds are Job and Bartimaeus. Job could easily listen to his friends and turn his suffering inward, accepting his suffering is somehow his own fault or assuming his suffering is God’s way of casting Job out of favor and relationship. But unlike Job’s friends, who God proclaims refuse to speak to God in the midst of suffering, Job does nothing but speak for about forty chapters. Instead of abandoning his relationship with God as his friends do, Job does something different. “In the midst of his dark night, he dares to tell the truth of his life to his Creator. By lamenting, complaining, and shouting his discontent to the God he believes to be attacking him, he keeps his relationship with God alive.”[ii] As Biblical scholar Kathleen O’Connor explains, “In the midst of his abyss, Job holds fast to God; he argues, yells, and acts up in courage and fidelity; Job clings to his dignity as a human, maintains his integrity, and sets it without qualification before God.”[iii] Job understands that suffering is not an occasion to walk away from God, but to stay in brutally honest, painful, vulnerable conversation with God.

Bartimaeus seemed to embrace a similar relationship with Jesus. When Bartimaeus needs healing, he shouts out to Jesus – an uncouth, ugly, socially unacceptable, raw cry to Jesus. And when the crowd shushes him, he cries out even more loudly. Where the crowd wanted boundaries around Bartimaeus’ relationship with Jesus, Bartimaeus understands that relationship means staying in conversation, calling God to account, demanding presence with God.

Now the fact that Job is restored to wealth and wholeness and Bartimaeus’ sight is restored is not really the point. We could easily and cheaply want to say, “all you need to do is cry out to God and you get whatever you want.” You and I both know from firsthand experience that that is not how God works. As O’Connor explains, “It is not true that good things always come to good people, but it is true, as Job discovers, that new experience of life requires new ways of speaking to God.”[iv] What we see today in scripture is a model of how to engage with God throughout all of life’s journeys – the joys, the sorrows, the celebrations, the suffering. We are not promised a happy ending, but we are promised a transformed life when we stay in active, vulnerable, ugly conversation with God.

Today we are celebrating our blessing to belong to this faith community, and are offering our financial pledges to support the work and ministry of this place that has blessed us beyond measure. But our invitation today from scripture is to also celebrate the way in which we belong to God. For some of us, that invitation will be quite easy. We may be in a place where our love for the Lord is abundant, and we can happily proclaim our love. For others of us, that celebration may be more difficult, because, quite frankly, we are a bit angry with God, have lost trust in God, or are just trying to make it through this day. Part of our responsibility as a community who is blessed to belong here at Hickory Neck is embracing each one of us here and wherever we are in that journey with God. The blessing of this community is that no one here is going to be like the crowd or the friends of Job, telling you to get your relationship right with God. But we will sit with you in your suffering and celebrate the transformation of your life in Christ. Because we know part of being blessed to belong here at Hickory Neck means you will do the same for us someday. And that is a community I want to belong to everyday! Amen.

A couple of Sundays ago, something magical happened at our 11:15 service. As we transitioned from adult formation to setting up for our last service, every time I turned around, someone special had arrived. First it was an older couple who have limited their driving. Their daughter was in town and brought them to church. You should have seen their faces light up as one parishioner after another rejoiced in seeing them back in church. Then there was the graduate student who we see occasionally, but whose studies keep him super busy. I was delighted to see him again, and I think he was delighted to be recognized and warmly greeted. Then there was the couple who have both had health issues. I noticed early into the service they had quietly sneaked into the back row of the church, and when our eyes met, we both lit up with smiles. And none of that accounts for those who had returned after vacations, visiting family members of our Choral Scholars, and our regulars who were equally happy to experience the sense of reunion that Sunday.

That overwhelming sense of joy and reunion is at the heart of what has been our stewardship season this fall called, “Blessed to Belong.” In a world that can feel stressful, isolating, challenging, or discouraging, having a place where you can experience blessing and belonging is a priceless gift. That sense of belonging creates a sense of protection, comfort, encouragement, and hope. That sense of belonging creates so much joy you want to share the joy with others. That sense of belonging is one known through the love of Christ and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. Though belonging can connote exclusivity, instead, at church, belonging begets belonging. The bubbling sense of delight we experience at Hickory Neck cannot help but be shared.

This Sunday, we will gather in our financial pledges for the 2019 budget year. Even our ingathering is a festive demonstration of belonging, as the community organically rises from their seats and joins the throngs showing their commitment to the work and ministry of Hickory Neck. The procession in our way of saying, “Yes, I want to belong here, and have my belonging mean something.” I cannot wait to join you all as we shuffle our way to the altar, blessing our commitment to Christ and Christ’s church, and hugging each other along the way. Oh Lord, I want to be in that number! When the saints go marching in!

This past Sunday we had a visitor at church from out of town. We were kicking of stewardship season, a time when we talk about our financial giving to the church in preparation for the financial pledges we make for the coming year. The visitor was an Episcopalian, and no stranger to stewardship in the church. As he departed he said, “That was a good sermon, by the way…you know, for a stewardship sermon.”

I laughed heartily, and appreciated his honesty. I suspect he has heard many a stewardship sermon. As I thought about his feedback, I realized how separate “stewardship season” can feel from other times – how you can pinpoint a stewardship sermon from a regular sermon. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized stewardship sermons should feel more like the norm than the exception of October every year. Everything we do in church is tied to our financial giving. Our financial giving is simply the “so what?” of every experience we have in church.

This month we are in the midst of stewardship parties, having engaging conversations about our experiences and dreams for Hickory Neck. As a community, part of what we are hoping to help people realize is all that happens at Hickory Neck is tied to how we support our ministries with our treasure. The dreams we have for the work God has given us to do need not only our time and talent – they need our treasure; and not just any treasure, but a treasure that says, “This community and this work is important to me – so important that I will put my resources back into our work to the glory of God.”

This Sunday, we have a fantastic guest preacher coming. As I was preparing her for the services, I forewarned her that we would be in stewardship season, and she may want to consider that in her preparation. She quickly responded, “Oh that’s okay. Every sermon I preach is a stewardship sermon. You can’t hear the Gospel without a response!” I hope our guest preacher, our parties, our parishioner reflections, and the materials you have received are helping you consider how every week Jesus is asking for a response from you. Our work this month is connecting our passion for this place with our financial support of this place. I couldn’t be more excited to join you in that response!

This week we kickoff a season of stewardship called, “Blessed to Belong.” You will be receiving packets of information as you leave today from our Stewardship Committee and you have also all been invited to a Stewardship party. Several of those parties are coming up, but a few of us have already attended parties, and the conversations about belonging have been rich and engaging. We are sharing stories of how we found a sense of belonging in this community, the ways in which our belonging here has blessed our lives, and the dreams we have to deepen those ties of belonging. The conversations have already been life-giving to me, and I am looking forward to having those conversations with the rest of you.

But as I read our gospel text this week in preparation for today, I realized the text is pushing us a step further. You see, when most of us talk about belonging to Hickory Neck, we often share our stories of personal belonging: how we were welcomed, how we were cared for, and how our lives have become more blessed by this place. That work is especially important as we think about our financial giving, because our sense of belonging impacts our giving. We support the ministry of Hickory Neck because Hickory Neck is an important part of our lives. We give generously because we have been generously blessed. We increase our giving because we want that sense of belonging, identity, and purpose to continue for ourselves and generations to come. We give out of a sense of personal investment, commitment, and benefit.

But our gospel lesson today challenges us to think about belonging in a way that is even bigger than us. Often times, when we talk about our faith or our spiritual journey, we talk about our personal connection to Hickory Neck or to God: how God has changed our lives, how Jesus has journeyed with us, how the Holy Spirit has led us out of dark places. But our spiritual journey is not just about us – about our own personal walk with God. Certainly our gospel lesson last week was about that. Jesus called out the disciples for arguing about who was the best among them. Our work this past week was about checking ourselves, making sure we do not become so self-focused that we forget what Jesus is trying to do through us. Our work this past week has been about examining the self.

But this week, as the disciples journey on with Jesus, we realize the disciples have shifted from a self-centered mentality, to a group-centered mentality. The disciples have basically shifted from wondering who among them will be the greatest disciple of all time, to how they as a group are the greatest community of disciples of all time. The disciples discover an outsider casting out demons in Jesus’ name. John proudly boasts to Jesus, “Don’t worry Jesus, we tried to stop him because he is not following us.” In other words, this demon-caster did not belong to the inside group, or even follow behind the inside group, so he certainly could not proclaim to do anything in the name of Jesus. He needs to belong to believe and to become.

I moved around a lot as a kid, and one of the things that I learned pretty quickly is that there are distinct groups, and belonging to one of them is a tricky endeavor. There are the cool kids, whose belonging standards seem to be about fashion, looks, and behavior. There are the smart kids, who are rarely confused as being fashionable, but whose knowledge can be intimidating. There are the athletes, who have played more and with better teams than you can imagine. There are the alternative kids, who seem define themselves as being the anti-all-the-other-groups group. The list goes on and on. What typically defines these groups is who is out: who is not cool enough, smart enough, athletic enough, or anti-establishment enough.

The disciples are doing the exact same thing. In a quest to gain importance, and in the face of Jesus’ rebuke last week, the disciples do more of the same. They shift from arguing about who among them is the best to who outside of them should not be let inside the group. The difference is subtle: they are superficially following Jesus’ instruction to not compete for individual advancement, but they are totally disregarding Jesus’ point by seeking group superiority in the same way they were seeking individual superiority.

Jesus sighs deeply (or at least I imagine him doing so) and he tells them something simple, “whoever is not against us is for us.” In other words, the disciples belong to Jesus and have incredible value. But they are not the only ones who belong. Even the guy who has no idea what he is doing but knows there is something special about this Jesus – so special he tries invoking his name – even that guy belongs to Jesus. Jesus’ standards are pretty low – if you aren’t against him, you are for him. Jesus casts a pretty wide net for belonging. In fact, if we keep reading, we come to find out that even those who are against Jesus can be redeemed. Look at Paul’s life and you can hear that old hymn coming back to you, “There’s a wideness in God’s mercy, like the wideness of the sea…” In Jesus’ eyes, there are few barriers to belonging – and even those can be broken down in time.

So what does this all mean for Hickory Neck and those warm, fuzzy feelings we have for this wonderful place and these beautiful people? A few things. The sense of belonging we feel here happens because generations of people have espoused Jesus’ words, “whoever is not against us is for us.” This amazing community is amazing because people who belong here do not hoard their belonging or use their belonging as a weapon. Instead, people give belonging away freely because they experienced belonging freely. Just ask Bill Teale, and he will tell you how within weeks of joining Hickory Neck, he was considered “belonging” enough that he was given the position of chair of the Fall Festival – an event he had never attended!

The sense of belonging we feel is because we have adopted certain standards of behavior. We are a community who will not get in your way because you do not have the right credentials; we know we may not have had the right credentials once upon a time, and we would rather hang that millstone around our necks that get in your way and in the way of something amazing God is going to do through you. We are also a community that is working so hard on ourselves that we do not really judge your work; the hands, and eyes, and salt reserves we need to tend to ourselves teach us not to judge the challenges of your hands, eyes, or salt. But instead of stopping at humility, we go the next step, and offer you a hand as you struggle with your own stuff.

The sense of belonging you feel here is because members of this community give generously from their abundance to ensure that this community continues to be a place of belonging to all those who are making their way to Jesus. That is what today’s gospel lesson is really trying to teach us. The wideness of God’s mercy and the broadness of God’s love are what inspire us to make this amazing community a community of belonging, believing, and becoming. We invest our resources here because we learn here what that wideness and broadness feels like, and we want to be agents of expansion. We want to step out of our tendencies to become self-centered or in-group-centered,[i] and create a community that is so wide that all feel a loving embrace when they walk through our doors.

In the coming weeks, I encourage you to pray about your own experiences in blessing and belonging at Hickory Neck, and how your own financial giving reflects that blessing. I invite you to meditate on moments of blessing and belonging at Hickory Neck, and consider how your financial giving can create more of those moments. I challenge you to talk to your Hickory Neck friends about their journey of blessing and belonging at Hickory Neck, and how your collective financial giving might grow that blessing. This is our opportunity to widen the net of belonging, and grow Hickory Neck’s gifts to one another and the world. Amen.

I am always amused when I discover the Holy Spirit at work because the discovery usually happens when I am in the thick of executing something I thought I had planned myself. Ideas come to me, I test out the idea with others, I do the planning to implement the idea – basically the whole process involves a great deal of self-direction. But when an idea really blows me away is when the idea takes off in even better ways than I planned. When I finally realize how inspired the idea is, I realize that the idea could not have possibly come from me alone. The only way those incredible moments of confluence occur is through the Holy Spirit.

I had one of those moments this week. On Sunday we kicked off our stewardship campaign entitled “Journey to Generosity.” All sorts of activities are a part of that campaign: inspirational materials from our Stewardship Committee explaining the campaign, reflections from fellow parishioners, Parish Parties, sermons from the clergy, and meditations from national church leaders. All of those experiences would be enough to situate us in a place of profound gratitude. But then other things started happening.

The first has been attending our adult formation series. The series is about evangelism, so I had expected our energies to be focused on the work of spreading the good news. But the first sentence from the book we are using says, “Evangelism is your natural expression of gratitude for God’s goodness.”[i] While I thought our conversations about gratitude and generosity would be limited to stewardship, here gratitude was permeating other areas of church life. The second thing that happened was welcoming the first of three babies due this month at church. As I held the first one yesterday, especially after a rough twenty-four hours of mourning another massive shooting in Las Vegas, I looked at that tiny child and felt a profound sense of gratitude for the gift of life.

Our “inspired” idea to talk and pray about our Journey to Generosity has already morphed into something much bigger. I find myself being grateful not just for the generosity of parishioners who are passionate about our church and support its work through financial giving. I am also grateful for a community of people who are so enthusiastic about their gratitude that they want to go out and share the good news with others. I am grateful for a church community so generous in spirit that they can take tragedy and find rays of light and hope all around. I am grateful for a community whose gratitude is so powerful that they have a vision of making our community a better place: through our Fall Festival, through our visioning work with our Vestry, and through daily service to others. What seemed like a catchy campaign slogan has actually been naming a way of life at Hickory Neck: a life rooted in gratitude and generosity. Thank you for letting me be a part of this journey with you all. You inspire me every day and you transform my relationship with God every week. God bless you on your journey to generosity!

I don’t know about you, but there are times when I have to tune out from the world. I binge watch HGTV or find a mindless comedy and I just zone out. In part, I do this because my psyche, my spirit, my soul feels overwhelmed. I cannot listen to one more story of natural disaster – of floods, of famine, of destruction. I cannot learn of one more part of the world where humanity seems lost – of genocide, of systemic violence against women, of the taking of land from its rightful owners. And lately, I cannot absorb one more barb by a political campaign – of slander, of innuendo, of plain meanness. And if I am not trying to hide from the world around us, sometimes I find I need to hide from the world right in front of us – from awful diagnoses, to life lost, to relationships broken.

While one common response is to relieve tension through mindless activity, the other alternative is to do what Habakkuk does today: cry out to God. “How long, O LORD, must I call for help, but you do not listen?” The reading from Habakkuk today starts with what is called a lament – something commonly seen in the psalms,[i] but known by us all because at some point in our lives, we have all cried out a lament to God. In this particular lament, Habakkuk is angry with God because the world is crumbling around him. Violence is on every side and those supposed to enforce justice are perverting justice. You can hear the sense of betrayal in Habakkuk’s voice – as if God has abandoned him and the rest of God’s people. And so, Habakkuk does what God’s people have done from the days of Abraham – he argues with God.[ii] He demands a response. He calls God to task – demanding that God not let this ungodly world continue on its ungodly path.

If you are ever in a crisis, one of the things you will learn about me is what I love about our God: God can take our anger, our righteous indignation, our arguments. Our people have been engaging this way with God from the beginning – not victim to an all-powerful God who demands our obedience, but in relationship with a God who can handle all of our “stuff.” Lord knows God has gotten an earful from me over the years – every time a child is lost, fellow citizens die from senseless violence, or life just seemed too much to bear – God has heard from me. Sometimes I cry out in a lament, sometimes I cannot even find the words I am so angry. I learned a long time ago that the good news is God can take it.

After his lament, Habakkuk does something that is quite familiar to me as a parent of young children. Habakkuk stomps his feet, crosses his arms, and stares in silent indignation, daring God to respond. Of course, one could certainly label this as the conclusion of Habakkuk’s temper tantrum. But an alternative may be to see something else in what Habakkuk is doing. In the face of great sorrow, anger, and despair, Habakkuk does not flee. Though he feels abandoned, he does not abandon God. Instead, he demands God’s presence and will not be satisfied until he hears a word from God. And so he waits. He waits, and watches. He keeps vigil, listening for God to speak.

Several years ago, Hickory Neck was thriving and heading toward what looked like a tremendous time of growth and change. The community rallied around creating this new worship space to house the community that was bursting at the seams. We even have plans for how to expand this building into phases two and three when we expected we would be bursting at the seams again. But a few years ago, we hit a bit of snag. Our pastor became ill and eventually took a new call. Though we had an interim priest, we had interims without the interim. I would not say that things ever got so rough that we called out in lament to God like Habakkuk. But we did take a play out of Habakkuk’s book: we stood in wait, keeping vigil, listening for God to speak a new word to us.

And slowly, God did just that. God began to speak. God began to whisper new dreams, new visions. We began to dream about mission trips, increased local outreach, repurposing building or building new spaces to house ministries for the growing population of both retirees and young families in our area, and meaningful worship and growth. God began to open our hearts to what new clergy might join us, and what new visions we might build together. We began to do what God tells Habakkuk to do today. When God finally speaks to Habakkuk, God says, “Write the vision; make it plain on tablets, so that a runner may read it.” Now there is a little scholarly debate[iii] about what the vision is God is communicating – one of promise or one of condemnation – one to be rejoiced or one to be feared[iv] – but the clarity is what strikes me. Write the vision; make it plain.

A little under a year ago, your Vestry engaged in just that kind of work. They looked at the state of Hickory Neck, they talked about their dreams for Hickory Neck, they looked at the finances, and then the wrote a vision. They knew what everyone here knows: that Hickory Neck is a special place that has been challenged to grow in new and exciting ways. We have all experienced the power of worship in this place, the transformative nature of formation and prayer in this place, the radical commitment to hospitality in this place, and the passion for Christ’s call to love our neighbors in this place. And so, the Vestry did what may feel a little like that line from a Field of Dreams, declaring “If we build it, they will come.” But the Vestry did not just wait for “them” to come. They soberly looked at finances and decided they would not only fund a rector, but also a curate. They named their vision to make our buildings not just useful to us, but useful to our communities: through Winter Shelter and outside guests, but maybe eventually to a preschool or day center for seniors. The Vestry committed to not just waiting for “them” to come, but employing tools to invite, welcome, and connect seekers into our community. They wrote the vision and they made it plain.

When I first came on board with Hickory Neck in April, the Vestry began to ask me under what vision we were going to operate. What I told them is what I will tell you: we are already operating under a vision. Now, there are certainly dreams I have for where we will be 5 to 10 to 15 years from now, but for today, for next year, we already have a vision. Now, being pragmatists, the Vestry wanted me to make it plainer. And so, we worked in reverse. We sat down and we mapped out the entire calendar from August to August. We wrote down everything we normally do and everything we hope to do. And then we stepped back and said, “Is this us? Does our calendar reflect who we are and our vision for this place?” You see, our calendar was just a tool to mark our values and vision.

We have been engaging in that same conversation in our homes, in small groups, and as a community these last four weeks. As we laid out a vision of being a community that lives generously, we took stock not of our calendars, but of our checkbooks. We sat down and looked at where our money was going and whether that cash flow reflected our values and vision. For the Vestry, our budget involves some commitments that are hefty, but reflect a vision of who we want to be. Each Vestry member went home and engaged in a similar exercise at home, looking to see if their budgets reflected a vision of who they want to be as individuals.

The Vestry and Stewardship Committee have written a vision and made it plain. Instead of scaling back and being tentative, we have committed to being a parish who boldly is ready to seek and serve Christ in all persons and to share the Good News of God in Christ. As the Prayer Book says in the Catechism, our vision is to restore all people to unity with God and each other in Christ, as we pray and worship, proclaim the Gospel, and promote justice, peace, and love.[v] Those are bold promises that will require all of us to succeed. Today, we are talking about how our treasure is needed to bring that vision to fruition; in January, we will also talk about how our time and talent will bring that vision to fruition. But because our vision is living generously, this is not a call to sacrifice and struggle. No, this vision is an occasion for celebration and joy. I look forward to marking that celebration and joy with you today as we bless our commitments to live generously, eagerly helping Hickory Neck to shine its light on the hill for all to see. Amen.

This past Sunday we kicked off our Fall Stewardship Season, “Living Generously.” I talked about the campaign in my sermon, but we also have many invitations into this time of discernment for our parishioners. We each received a packet of information about the ways we can support the life and ministry of Hickory Neck. We have reflections written by national and parish-level leaders that invite us to consider their experiences around stewardship. And we are having conversations with each other about how pledging works for each of us.

Just last night, the Vestry took on one of those conversations. We looked at the gospel lesson for this coming Sunday (Luke 18.1-8) and talked about the challenge of persistence when it comes to stewardship. We realized that no matter what financial situation or phase of life we are in, living generously does not come naturally or easily, but takes intentionality and persistent commitment. In our small group, we had a person with young children – including some in childcare, a person with teens approaching college, a person who is thinking about retirement but has taken in an aging parent, and a person in retirement on a fixed income. Despite those differences, we all have to be intentional with our commitment to stewardship because we all have commitments that can distract us from generosity and tempt us into scarcity.

There was something powerful about talking about hard keeping our commitment to stewardship is with other parishioners. Too often we take those pledge cards home and embark on a discernment process that is very individualized. Certainly, we all need time with our God on our own to fortify ourselves to being generous stewards. But we also need companions on the journey – fellow parishioners who can say, “Yes, it is hard living generously!” We need those fellow pilgrims because they also remind us of why we keep at it. These are the same people who will remind you why you are grateful. After the Vestry talked about the challenges of living generously, then we talked about the benefits. Stories started pouring in about what we each get out of Church. We talked about the ways that Hickory Neck feeds us and brings us joy. We talked about the ways that, throughout life, God has been so faithful to us, and what an honor it is to be able to harness some of that generosity in our own lives.

On Sunday, I encouraged us to spend some time at home in discernment about our stewardship of God’s abundance. This week, I also want to encourage us to spend some time in discernment with each other. Share those challenges to being a steward; but also share those blessings of being a steward. Those conversations may feed the conversation you have at home and will certainly renew your spirit. Join us as we embark on this journey toward living generously together!

I once knew a man who was impossible to compliment. Whether you wanted to compliment a job well done or good deed, his response was always the same, “It’s not me. All the glory goes to God.” His response always left me feeling like I just offered a present that was rejected. Of course, I totally agreed with what he was saying – none of us is able to do good without the God who empowers us to do so. And truly, Jesus was not that great at accepting compliments either, especially if you recall all the times he asked people to keep a healing secret or to just go back to work. But upon receiving a compliment, a simple, “Thank you,” would not have hurt this man. After a while, I just stopped trying to praise his work or good deeds.

I think that is why I relate to the nine lepers who do not return to Jesus to give him thanks and praise. There were ten lepers originally – nine who were Jewish and one who was a Samaritan. We are not sure why the ten are together – the Jews and the Samaritans were enemies and rarely spent time together.[i] We are told at the beginning of the text that Jesus was passing through a borderland between Samaria and Galilee, so there is a possibility that then ten men banded together through their disease instead of culture. You see, both Samaritans and those of Galilee would have been seen as impure due to their leprosy. Being exiled to the borders of their land, they may have found more in common than divided them. And so, as a group, they shout out to Jesus for healing – careful not to approach him, of course, which would have been improper in their condition. Respecting their distance, Jesus does not insist they come forward, but instead tells them to go to the priest to show themselves to be healed. Along the way, they are healed, but they still would have needed to show a priest in order to be restored to their families and friends.[ii]

The Samaritan among them returns and gives praise to God, but the others do not. We do not know how their journey unfolds. Presumably they are faithfully doing what Jesus told them to do – going to the priest for restoration. Perhaps they give praise to God once the priest restores them. Perhaps they give praise when they are reunited with their families. Maybe they even show their praise through helping lepers later. But that is all supposition. All we get today is Jesus’ criticism of the nine because they neglect to turn and give God praise and thanksgiving.

I have been reflecting on Jesus’ words this week, and what rubs me the wrong way may be the same thing that rubbed me the wrong way when that man I knew always refused praise. In both cases, whether Jesus, or the man I knew, there is both implicit and explicit criticism of my own practice of gratitude and thanksgiving. What irritated me about the man’s responses to me was that they made me feel guilty – that perhaps I was not grateful enough to God for the goodness in my life. The same thing irritates me about Jesus this week – his judgment of the nine makes me feel guilty about the ways I have walked away healed and not given praise to God.

This week we are kicking off our stewardship season in a campaign called, “Living Generously.” After the service, you will be receiving a packet of information about how you can support the ministry of Hickory Neck, and a pledge card that we will collect in a celebratory ingathering in just four weeks. Most preachers would have read the text today and thought, “Yes! The perfect Stewardship text!” But the more I sat with Jesus’ words, the more I realized that his words actually bring up feelings of dread rather than joy. Most people associate stewardship with the same sense of guilt that this reading brings up. We feel guilted into showing gratitude, and so we guiltily look at our budgets and see if we can increase our pledge this year.

The first time I experienced the concept of pledging was when I started regularly attending an Episcopal Church. In the churches where I grew up, you never had to tell anyone what you were going to give. The preacher might have talked about a tithe – ten percent of your income. But the preacher never wanted you to say exactly what you were going to give. So when the warden of this church started explaining how he wanted us to pledge, I was aghast. I remember thinking, “That’s private! I don’t have to tell you how much I am going to give!” Now, I knew we would probably tithe that year, but the idea of telling someone else about my giving seemed to go against every cultural norm I knew. Fortunately, I stayed to hear the rest of the warden’s talk. He explained that the way the church formed the church’s budget was through the knowledge of what income they could expect. The Vestry would adjust expenses accordingly and try to get the budget balanced. My outrage faded as I realized how responsible that model seemed. Thus began my adult journey into pledging.

But that journey into pledging experienced a transformation about eight years later. We were at a new church, and the priest asked to hold our pledge cards until a particular Sunday. We did and the funniest thing happened. In the middle of the service, a banner appeared. The banner was processed down the aisle, joyful music started playing, and people started following the banner forward. We placed our pledge in a basket, and I felt something stirring in me. The priest blessed the pile of pledge cards, and something about stewardship turned in my heart – the pledging, the monthly giving was no longer an obligation or burden – something to be guilted into. My pledge was a joyful sign of gratitude – a sign blessed by God and affirmed by the community. And I have to say – it felt good!

In the gospel lesson today, the text says that the Samaritan turns back to Jesus. That word for turns back is more than just a physical description – the action of turning back is a sign of deep transformation – a reorienting of the Samaritan’s life from duty to gratitude.[iii] I do not think Jesus was looking for a guilty admission of thanks from the other nine lepers. What Jesus is looking for is a transformation of the heart – a turning of one’s life away from obligation and duty to joyful gratitude and thanksgiving.

I was reading this week about a woman with an interesting habit. Whenever someone asked her how she is – that basic question we always ask and anticipate the answer being, “Fine,” – instead she would say, “I’m grateful.” No matter what is on her plate – stress at work or school, an illness that kept plaguing her, strife at home – her response is always the same, “I’m grateful.”[iv] As I thought about her response this week, I realized that her response is probably one that took willful practice. I am sure there were weeks when she really felt grateful. But there were also probably weeks when she had to say she felt grateful even if she was not sure what there was to be grateful about. But slowly, slowly, I imagine the practice cultivated a spirit of gratitude. A practice like that can do exactly what Jesus wants for us all – a turning of the heart to praise and thanksgiving. I know I will never be able to shift toward the kind of response that the man I knew always gave, rejecting praise altogether. But learning to say, “I’m grateful,” might be a way for me to get a little closer to the same sentiment.

What that woman is doing, what Jesus is encouraging, and even what our Stewardship campaign is inviting is not a sense of guilt or burden, but a genuine invitation into a life that turns our heart to gratitude and transforms the way we see the world. Now that does not mean that every time you write the check to fulfill your pledge you will part from that treasure with a joyful heart. But that practice is a small invitation, every time, for us to turn our hearts and to see not only the God from whom all blessings flow, but to even see the blessings in the first place. Jesus is not mad at those lepers because they are ungrateful – he is sad for them because they have denied themselves the gift of transformation. That is the gift that he and the Church offer us every week – the gift of a transformed heart that can change everything. For that, I’m grateful. Amen.

This week we continue a series of guest blog posts by parishioners at the Episcopal Church of St. Margaret in Plainview, NY. They are reflecting on what stewardship means to them, and how God the Giver has been a part of their lives. Our guest post this week is from parishioner Mike Hadden.

In this latest season of stewardship, I reflect on the things that I can do to give back to the Episcopal Church that has provided me many fond memories; camps, dances, youth groups, just to name a few. I’ll share one memory. There was a point when I was a kid, growing up in Shelby, NC (Church of the Redeemer), that my father was out of work for an extended period of time. Mom and Dad were always active members in church (they later went on to found an Episcopal Church in Mooresville, NC – St. Patrick’s Mission). They had good friends through church, and participated in many activities. Deep into that employment transition for my Dad, the church vestry had apparently decided to use a portion of the discretionary funds available to cut a check to them, to help pay for our expenses. I’ll never forget the tears rolled down my Dad’s face when he accepted it.

However, stewardship isn’t just about money. It’s about what you can give back to the church through use of your talents – fundraising, maintenance work, etc. My family certainly doesn’t pledge a tremendous amount of money to the church annually. We can’t afford to. What we can – and do – do is give of our time; Mari on the Altar and Flower Guilds and teaching Sunday school; me on Vestry and Stewardship/Fundraising Committee. I firmly believe this Parish has the potential to be great. To grow back into one of the more prominent Episcopal churches on Long Island. We have lots of activities available, and are starting new ones all the time. What we need now is to use that positive momentum to drive forward in growth. The “Town Hall” meeting this Sunday felt like another step forward. Let’s continue that forward push, together.

Thank you all for everything you already do to make St. Margaret’s a great place to call my church home.